Kelvin Smith Library
RILM or Music Index -- Which Should I Use?
Search Strategy: There is a way to search both RILM and Music Index simultaneously. You can do so by accessing either database, click on Choose Databases (directly above the search box), and then selecting the other database.
What Can I Do With This Database? Retrieve citations for and links to full text (when available) for articles, chapters of books and dissertations on the music of specific films and film genres, the music of the films of specific directors, and the work of specific composers who write for film. This database covers 1967 to present.
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What Can I Do With This Database? Retreive citations for and links to JSTOR full text (when available) for articles on the music of specific films and film genres, the music of the films of specific directors, and the work of specific composers who write for film. This database covers 1973 to present.
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Film Music: While film music is best heard in context, film music (and its study) often has intrinsic value apart from a film. Audio recordings generally provide highlights from a film score and in some cases concert excerpts such as orchestral suites based on the music of a specific film. Hearing film music apart from a film allows you to concentrate on elements of the composer's style, such as orchestration.
Film Musicals: The music of film musicals is tied to specific productions or performers. Recordings may be based on productions and cast from the original theatrical productions, theatrical revivals or film adaptations.
Audio Collections at Case:
Film Scores: Complete musical scores for the music of a film are virtually never published and manuscript scores, if extant, are difficult to find and access. Score anthologies of excerpts from the music of a film often exist ("Music from the Star Wars Trilogy") but these are typically arrangements for piano and are not helpful for studying a film composer's orchestration techniques.
Film Musicals: Complete musical scores for musicals are generally never published, although there are notable exceptions (Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story). The songs from a given musical are usually published in anthologies in which the songs are arranged for voice with piano accompaniment. You can find these in the Case Libraries online catalog and the OhioLink online catalog.
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